Muriel Casals i Couturier was a Catalan economist. She was a professor emeritus in the Department of Economics and Historical Economics in the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where she was also vicedean of International Relations and Cooperation between 2002 and 2005. She specialized in industrial reconversions, the history of economic thought and European economics.

Casals was also the representative of the UAB in the Xarxa Vives d'Universitats (Live University Networks) between 2002 and 2009. She had been a visiting professor at the University of Edinburgh, the London School of Economics and the University of Wales at Bangor.

She was a frequent collaborator with the weekly El Temps and the Economics and Business program on Catalunya Informació. She was a member of the Council of the Catalan Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1983–1988), and member of the Catalan Council of the European Movement. She was a member of the board of the Ateneu Barcelonès (2003–2007). She served on the Board of Òmnium Cultural between 2008 and 2015, and had been its president since March 10, 2010.

On September 9, 2011 she received the Premi Identitat, as part of the Nit d'Identitat organized by the group Identitat from Cornellà. Muriel Casals passed away on February 14, 2016 due to complications from being hit by a bike.